External links from banned websites

[Nick_Johansson]

Currently working with a client that has seen his rankings diminish after the penguin update. I've manually analyzed all his 600 backlinks and identified approximately 85 external links from websites that have been banned by Google. How do these sites affect his current rankings? Should i just disavow all these links using the Google disavow tool?

Any comments would be highly appreciated!

[GKLA]

I would use the disavow tool as a last resort.  Which would mean, first getting some sort of notification regarding unnatural links and only after all else failed trying to remove those 85 external links by attempting to make direct contact with those sites and asking for link removal.

[MozAddict]

Disavow should be last step, try to contact webmasters first.

[Christy-Correll]

Hi Nick, you've received some good answers. Did they answer your question?

[Nick_Johansson]

Hi Christy,

This question was answered for me but not here at SEOmoz but instead on Danny Sullivan's recent blog post "How Google's Disavow Links Tool Can Remove Penalties". I will be using the disavow tool to remove these banned links.

Cheers,

Nick